Bambooka / PEPE Fundraiser Trek

OUR LATEST FUNDRAISING PLANS

The Bambooka team have put their heads together and have organised a fundraiser to help get funds for…

Hello All

The Bambooka team have put their heads together and have organised a fundraiser to help get funds for the community of Amasame.

As you all know Bambooka have begun planning for the rural development project that seeks to support the community of Amasame in a practical and appropriate way. Your funds raised from this trek will be used to provide the necessary life-skills and know-how needed to become independent. Skills that will enable people to grow their own crops build their own shelter and provide safe water.

Take a look at the info below:

Overview

• Providing food for people is only a short-term solution to world hunger.
• Whilst important during serious famine, long-term, it creates disempowering dependency.
• Whilst we continue to only react to famine and not implement long-term solutions the situation will only get worse.
• The use of inorganic fertilisers and pesticides are destroying the eco-system creating infertile soil and desert.
• Colonialism and apartheid have produced a cultural mindset of dependency and fatalism to life.
• Through the provision of life skills and permaculture training rural communities in South Africa can revive their implicit knowledge from the pre-colonial era, of how to live in harmony with nature.
• The charity PEPE and Eyewear Africa have formed a unique alliance to aid community development using the creation of bamboo plantations as a means to provide life-skills training and enterprise creation in food and bamboo production.
• Within 3 to 5 years the bamboo plantation provides sustainable eco-friendly materials for construction, fencing, rainwater harvesting, furniture, and future local crafts and micro-enterprises.
• The bamboo plantation is planned to be the main source of bamboo to hand-make Eyewear Africa’s unique Bambooka range of sunglasses within the Amasame community.

The Community of Amasame

• Many people receive and rely on Government handouts to buy food from local supermarkets. In the past this was just enough to survive but as the world economy falters hunger is becoming increasingly prevalent.
• The people have an increasing desire to take control of their own lives, to become much more independent from state handouts and control.
• A pilot project run last year, teaching organic food production, homestead construction and conflict resolution has demonstrated individual potentiality.
• There are extensive facilities available, owned by the community, to provide life-skills training and personal development for all methods of uplifting the community.
• These facilities are currently massively under-utilised.
• The long-term community development plan aims to provide all the individual basic skills needed to become sustainably independent – food production, homestead construction and water management as well as promoting sustainable community development through micro-enterprise creation.
• Once the Amasame community is strengthened the capacity of the training facilities makes it an ideal location to become a regional training centre, uplifting communities across the Eastern Cape and possibly beyond.

The money you raise

• Will be channelled through the charity PEPE and used to assist community development at Amasame.
• £1000 for example will provide organic food production training for 15 people.
• With the appropriate training these skills can be passed on to another 60 people in the local community through the multiplier effect of teaching neighbours.
• £1000 will purchase 400 bamboo plants – enough for a one hectare plantation.

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It’s a fine line between helping someone and disempowering them! Many charities focus on Food, Water or shelter provision, which certainly helps to alleviate desperate situations around the world, but without teaching people how to provide these things for themselves it will not promote long-term change. To help break the cycles of poverty and dependency we need to help people to live independent and sustainable lives. Drive for sustainable change must come from within the individual and the community – empowered people changing their own lives and that of the community.

The people within Amasame, a rural community of 9,000 people in the Eastern Cape Region of South Africa, are working hard to change their lives from ones of dependency and fatalism to one of participation, independence and greater choice. This process is not easy as many generations have lived this way as a result of the devastating effects of colonial and apartheid rule. Empowering life-skills training delivered during a pilot project last year together with the Increasing pressures of poverty and hunger have provided a momentum for change, creating a desire to resolve their own problems and that of the community, but some help is needed to create the self-confidence and self-esteem crucial for independence and wellbeing.

By fundraising and taking part in this trek you will be helping to support the community of Amasame in a practical and appropriate way. Your funds will be used to provide the necessary life-skills and know-how needed to become independent. Skills that will enable people to grow their own crops build their own shelter and provide safe water. Currently, many families are dependent on the Government grant system for food. They spend their hand-outs in supermarkets outside Amasame but the amount of food they can purchase is becoming less and less with rocketing prices. Last year the grant was just enough to prevent hunger but this is becoming increasing less so. Rising food prices is a situation affecting not only the people of Amasame but many other communities in South Africa and around the world. Increasingly, many people are threatened with hunger and starvation.

The Traditional Council and the people of Amasame share the same desire and vision for sustainable change. People who attended the permaculture courses last year are slowly becoming self-sufficient in providing their own food and this is having a positive effect on those around them. The community collectively own a vastly underutilised community training college and agricultural area that has been willingly made available for life-skills training. The long-term goal is to create a regional training centre once the local community has been strengthened. It is hoped that this can uplift the lives, directly and indirectly, of many thousands of poverty stricken people. Water management and homestead construction as well as community business creation will be promoted there too.

The main purpose of the trek is to raise funds to pay for further life-skills training courses. The cost to provide a permaculture course for 15 people is £1000, so by reaching your fund raising target you can help 15 people (and therefore their families) become more secure in food provision, lead a healthier lifestyle and feel more confident increasing their well-being. Skills sharing with neighbours is encouraged in the community presenting the potential to reach a further 45 families.

Baz and Ruth van Cranenburgh with David Philips, the founder of PEPE, have set up a social enterprise – Eyewear Africa – which has launched Bambooka, a unique range of hand-made sunglasses made from bamboo. This is a not for profit enterprise and the proceeds from the sale of the Bambooka range of sunglasses are destined for the Amasame community. The plan is to seed a bamboo plantation in 2012/13 so that in a few years’ time the mature bamboo can be used to develop a sustainable enterprise that makes and sells these unique Bambooka hand-made sunglasses. Reaching the target of £1000 will buy 400 bamboo plants to create 1 hectare of plantation. This will create opportunities for teaching new skills and a truly sustainable business. Bamboo has multiple other uses in the community for construction, guttering, drainage and fencing and is very important for the rehabilitation of the environment.

You can find out more on http://www.pepe.org.uk/projects/
Thank you if you are sponsoring a participant on the mountain challenge and thank you for joining us if you are taking part!